Crossing the Atlantic and landing in the United Kingdom, companies from Massachusetts find that much more than history and language connects the two places - the economic ties run deep.

Next month, when Gov. Deval Patrick and a group of Bay State business leaders make a trade mission to the U.K. after a stop in Israel, those ties will be on display as Patrick seeks to bring more foreign investment to Massachusetts.

But for growing Massachusetts technology companies, the U.K. represents other types of opportunities. Firms such as Chelmsford-based Kronos Inc. have found the country a natural first destination in expanding overseas.

“It’s a super successful market for us,” said Aron Ain, CEO of the human resources software firm, which expanded to the U.K. in 1987 and now employs 100 there.

“I can’t imagine why U.S. companies wouldn’t want to be doing business actively in the U.K.,” he said.

According to Patrick’s office, 253 Massachusetts-based companies have operations in the United Kingdom. Technology companies active there range from Waltham defense giant Raytheon Co., which has been there for four decades, to Boston energy management firm EnerNOC Inc., which entered in 2009.

The U.K. is also the largest export market for Massachusetts products; gold (for industrial applications), pharmaceuticals and medical devices are at the top of the list. Annual exports from Massachusetts to the country grew 150 percent between 2005 and 2009, to $4 billion, though the exports fell in 2010, to $3.2 billion.

The U.K. marks the first overseas venture for EnerNOC, which was founded in 2001. The company works in the country to address short-term reliability problems for the electric grid, and has a staff of about a dozen in the country, said president David Brewster. “We’re really excited about the U.K., because it’s a large market with very attractive regulations,” Brewster said.

Framingham-based GlassHouse Technologies Inc., which optimizes data centers, expanded to the United Kingdom with two acquisitions in 2004. The company picked up its current COO from one of the acquired companies, and GlassHouse has also used the country as a launch pad into the rest of the European market, said CEO Mark Shirman. The U.K. arm employs 100 and generates about 30 percent of the company’s revenue.

“It’s our biggest office outside the U.S., and it ends up driving most of our European strategy,” Shirman said.

While each Massachusetts firm has industry-specific reasons for setting up shop in the U.K., broader economic similarities also make it attractive, said Phil Budden, consul general at the British Consulate-General in Boston. Both Massachusetts and the U.K. have innovation-centric economies, he said, and have “very similar business environments and very similar common law systems.”

The importance of the shared language can’t be underestimated, Budden added. And “if you do head to the U.K., it brings you within the single European market of 27 countries,” he said.

Doing business with the United Kingdom isn’t possible for every growing Massachusetts technology company, though. Canton-based Organogenesis Inc. would like to export its regenerative medicine treatments to the country, said CEO Geoff MacKay. But the European regulatory authority trails the U.S. in approving regenerative treatments, said MacKay, who is set to take part in the trade mission.

Operating in the U.K. also isn’t always smooth sailing, even for established companies. This was underscored last year when the country’s border agency cancelled a $395 million border control program with Raytheon.

Raytheon, which employs 1,300 in the country, claimed the move was a budget cut. But the U.K. said the program was running late and that the agency had “no confidence” in the company.

“Raytheon remains a very valued company as far as the U.K. is concerned,” said Nigel Sheinwald, British ambassador to the U.S., during a visit to Massachusetts this month. But, he added, there’d “been discussions going on with the company for some time about the execution of the contract, and the government felt it had no alternative but to make this decision.”